Sia.—One of your correspondents remarks that women heavily out- number
men. I don't know how this stands statistically, but it is very obvious that the number of available men is heavily thinned out by systems of education which aim at making a man financially successful at about forty, but for this purpose severely limit his earning powers between twenty-five and thirty. If education aimed at making competent tradesmen at about twenty, capable at twenty-five of can- ing enough for a household, a youth would be well in sight of per- sonal independence at sixteen, and the possibility of marriage would be in full view by the time he became twenty. Such an achievement is not -really very difficult, and would improve the type and enlarge the choice of bridegroom on offer. Exaltation of the forty-year-old. man is one of the mischiefs of the Victorian period. What about giving the forty-year-old woman a chance, not coupled to a man who by that time needs a nurse, but coupled to a man near her in agc, and with any luck near her in tastes and energies 7—I am, Sir, yours
Previous page
